An article over on Engadget (by way of NewScientistTech) examines a patent Intel has submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office describing a new sensor system they’re developing to help keep laptops cool.
In the patent, Intel describes how their system will use “light to sense when a computer casing is getting too hot, and automatically throttles back the power” to help keep the system cooler. Since these hot spots occur in various locations along a laptop’s casing, a light sensor system could detect changes on an internal thermochromatic coating and send a signal back to cool the laptop down appropriately.
The full patent application can be found here and should this work, the days of the leg-toasting PowerBook G4s and other too-warm laptops may be a thing of the past.

An article over at Hardmac.com provides a step by step guide as to how to upgrade a MacBook and MacBook Pro Core Duo laptop beyond its built-in 802.11g standard to the current 802.11n standard.
The first obstacle to overcome is how to install an 802.11n card in these laptops. The MacBook Core 2 Duo’s 802.11n-compatible card features three antennas as opposed to the two found in Apple’s previous laptop models. The authors discovered that the MacBook Pro’s 802.11n-compatible AirPort card had only two antennas but also the same PCI Express 1x size and connections.
The article then moves into a full step by step guide as to how to disassemble the MacBook, what tools are needed and how to proceed gently given that you’re working with a plastic casing. Upon completion, the author installed the new AirPort driver from the CD that came with Apple’s 802.11n-compatible AirPort Extreme Base Station and ran speed tests.
Click the jump for the full story…

Abode announced today that it has shipped its Photoshop Lightroom software. The software, which retails for US$199 until April, then rises to US$299, functions as a workflow management program (similar to Apple’s Aperture program) for digital images.
The package supports a wide variety of digital image formats such as JPEG, TIFF and more than 150 variants of the RAW format in order to be compatible with a wide variety of cameras on the market. Featured tools include white balance, exposure control, tone curves, lens distortion and color casts.
The public beta, which was released for the Mac OS X and Windows operating systems last year, will expire on February 28th. Photoshop Lightroom requires Mac OS X 10.4.3. or later, a 1 GHz G5, G5 or Intel-based processor and one gigabyte of hard drive space to install and run. The software is a universal binary an runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware architectures.

The folks over at AppleiPhoneReview.com have posted and summarily removed an ad describing Cingular’s planned calling rates for the highly-anticipated Apple iPhone. The ad mentions a US$39.99 rate for 450 minutes with unlimited mobile to mobile calling and 5,000 night and weekend minutes with data plans starting at US$4.99 a month for 200 minutes or US$19.99 a month for a 200 message data plan plus unlimited Internet use and Visual Voicemail.
The ad may have only been a sample from a private consumer survey form and full details can be found over at Jason’s Apple Core blog.
And now, the million dollar question: how much is the iPhone worth to you each month?

An article on MacNN points to Mexican airline Volaris, which will rent iPods out to its passengers for about US$5.
Although Apple has made arrangements with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to offer integration between the iPod and these carriers’ in-flight entertainment systems, Volaris seems to be the first to offer the devices themselves, albeit the units aren’t inegrated into seat-back video screens.
The airline has begun distributing 30 gigabyte iPod video units for the rental fee of 50 pesos per flight as of February 8th. The iPods are configured with Mexican TV shows and music, although Volaris also plans to load American television shows and other genres of music.
Not a bad way to fly and if you have an opinion, let us know.

Parallels has released build 3170, the third candidate version, of Parallels Desktop for Mac. The final build, when complete, will be known as Parallels Desktop for Mac 2.5.
Parallels Desktop for Mac has become a favorite Windows virtualization tool for many Mac OS X users who can now simultaneously run Microsoft’s Windows operating systems on their Intel-based Macs without having to reboot a la Apple’s Boot Camp technology.
The new version, a 38.7 megabyte download, offers a wide variety of fixes and changes (as listed on the version’s notes page), the most prominent being better Coherence support (which allows users to run Windows applications directly from Mac OS X’s Dock), improved USB 2.0 support, Windows Vista upgrade improvements and preliminary support for Apple’s upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” operating system, due out later this year.
Parallels Desktop for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to run. The software retails for US$79.99 and is available as a trial download.
If you’ve had any experience with the new Parallels build, positive or negative, let us know.

For those who miss the days of Apple’s sub-notebooks such as the PowerBook Duo and the PowerBook 2400, good news may be around the corner. An article over on AppleInsider both explains Apple’s history with the its sub-notebooks as well as describes a MacBook sub-notebook which sources close to the project say is ahead of its Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference ship date this June.
The laptop, while noted as lacking an optical drive, is expected to include most of the features present on the current MacBook while introducing a NAND-flash based memory system. The solid-state memory, which uses no moving parts, is anticipated to improve power efficiency and help provide near-instantaneous boot times, although this has yet to be frozen into the final design build according to sources.
Even if some don’t consider a sub-notebook to be critical to Apple’s lineup, the effort would help Apple in its Japanese markets, where Mac sales declined about 14% as of the company’s 2007 first fiscal quarter report.
Click the jump for the full story…

Bare Bones Software‘s BBEdit, long the poweruser favorite as a text editor and HTML generation tool, has been updated to version 8.6.1. The new version, a 14.3 megabyte download, brings new features such as syntax coloring for Mac OS X’s .strings file format, a reversible documents drawer and support for the LaTeX command “verb”.
Users will also find improved notices about whether a site license or KeyServer license has been used to activate their copy of BBEdit and fixes to the “Apply Text Factory” command to help the program function as a text editor.
A slew of listed bug fixes can be found on the current notes page.
BBEdit requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to run and retails for a US$125 purchase fee and US$30/US$40 ugrade fee from older versions.
The program is a Universal Binary and functions natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.

Prosoft Engineering has released Drive Genius 1.5.3, an updated version of its drive repair and recovery program for Mac OS X.
The new version, a 17.5 megabyte download, allows for a Mac OS X 10.4.8 boot CD capable of booting the most recent Macs.
Drive Genius retails for US$99 and requires a G3, G4, G5 or Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later installed to work. The application is a Universal Binary and functions natively under both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.
If you’ve tried the updated version and have had good or bad experiences with it, let us know.